Tag Archives: hotel

Some people can’t seem to choose what to carry in their luggage when going on a trip. They just keep on packing and packing as if there was no tomorrow. Nobody wants to pay more for having overpacked, get tired of carrying heavy bags, or even spend more than a couple of minutes looking for that thing you certainly took with you in that mess.

Planning is everything. So, whether you are traveling for business or leisure, there are a couple of devices and accessories that take very little room in your luggage and are always a good idea to have.

Maybe you just need space to store your emergency contact information in case you lose your wallet, your passport and driver’s licence details, hotel booking confirmations or frequently called numbers. Or you travel a lot for business and, apart from the cloud storage, you need a portable device that can offer you tons of space – plus some people don’t trust the cloud. All you need is a small and simple flash drive; somewhere in the 1GB memory range will do the trick for most users.

The Kingston’s Digital Data Traveler line of USB 3.0 flash drives is affordable, high-capacity, and totally portable. The all-aluminum casing makes it durable and it’s small enough to fit smoothly into a USB port anywhere. It comes in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

This small device is the first luggage locator in the world. You just place it in your luggage and download the app. With a quick tap on your smartphone, you will be able to track your luggage anytime and anywhere, to make sure that everything’s under control. LugLoc utilizes GSM-GPRS technology, as GPS requires open areas to operate it is not ideal for airport locations.

No matter if it’s a Kindle or hair dryer that you can’t be without, electronics are a must-have for modern travel and you need to be sure you’ve packed the right travel adaptors. The voltage and plug type to power devices differs from Japan to USA, from France to Argentina and so on.

The Flight 0014-in-1 Universal Travel Adapter is a set of color-coded plugs that allows you to easily adapt to over 150 countries. This is the first product utilizing the JA/C READY Adapter system, a color-coded world adapter system that makes finding the right plug for your trip as simple as matching the colors. This particular one does not convert power and each colored piece of it corresponds to various regions of the world. Finding the correct plug is as simple as matching colors.

You’ll never regret taking these beauties with you. Make a list and start enjoying!

What tech do you consider to be essential? Share your favorite with us!

Remember those days when you suddenly felt inspired and couldn’t find a notebook to write down those wonderful thoughts, feelings and ideas? Thank God we now have smartphones that can aid our beloved inspiration. So whether you need to go to the supermarket, prepare you luggage for a trip, organize Christmas presents, or keep a record of your trip, take a look at these three apps that will help you be ready for taking notes wherever you are and whenever you feel like.

With all the note taking apps out there it is difficult to decide which one to use, that’s why we’ve chosen three of them that can be use whether you have an Android or iOS smartphone.

Evernote

This awesome app lets you dictate or manually enter notes, plus snap photos, scan text, audio recording, create to-do-lists, share them with others and much more. Isn’t it great? Evernote has a clean interface, it’s surprisingly easy to navigate and it can sync with all your devices so you can quickly modify everything. This app is available for iOS andAndroid, and if you want to learn more about the uses of this appyou can check out the blog now.

Crop images, insert audio, video and other files into your notes, are just some of the uses of this beautiful app. Apart from being integrated with MS Office (has been part of it since 2003), One Note is great for travelers. Why? Because you can clip pictures from the internet and add them to your itineraries (like a map, something you saw on a museum website, etcetera). It really looks and feels like a digital version of a paper notebook, and lets you create simple or complex notes from scratch and sync them among a variety of platforms, including Windows PCs,Macs, iPads and iPhones, Windows Phones,Android devices and the web.

Google Keep

The interface doesn’t just looks great -it is highly functional too. Google Keep allows for voice and photo to be added to notes, and you can even set reminders, share what you’ve written down,and is integrated with Google Drive. You can even extract the text from images (a business card, a sign on the road for example) and turn them into an editable text. It’s simple, it has an easy access and integration with other Google services. The app is available for iOS andAndroid.

Reports of Delta investing in new technology with the goal of reducing lost and delayed luggage has travelers and experts wondering how effective the technology is, and if other airlines will follow.

Delta’s new tracking system uses “radio-frequency identification” (RFID) technology to make sure every bag gets to the right destination, by scanning all bags through different points of the airports.

You might be wondering that this RFID technology is. Well, an RFID device is basically the same as a bar-code, or as the magnetic strip on the back of a credit card or ATM card: it provides a unique identifier for that object through radio-frequencies. The advantage over the bar-codes that Airlines have been using is that it can be scanned much easier with the RFID scanners, and it can be automated as well.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, Delta handled about 120 million checked suitcases in 2015. Lost luggage has long been a nightmare scenario for travelers, but now that luggage fees have become standard (Delta charges a $25 per bag for domestic flights), patience for lost or delayed luggage is less welcome than ever.

The story described an airport employee using a computer to make sure each bag going onto a flight was supposed to be on that plane. A flashing light meant a checked bag was in the wrong place, and it was taken off the conveyor belt leading to the plane.

Jeremy Ciccone, the development director at MaxMedia, a digital retail agency, says Delta’s use of RFID tags follows the trend of the technology impacting the world across a variety of applications.

He explains that the technology uses small antennae, and work with RFID readers to identify objects up to several feet away.

“RFID tags allow for faster and more efficient bag identification for large numbers of bags compared to the older system of bar codes,” Ciccone says. “Baggage handlers can now scan an entire cart full of bags to make sure they are headed for the correct belts.”

Ciccone notes the cost of an RFID tag is minimal, and saves a lot of time because baggage handlers don’t have to check individual bags.

“RFID technology will eventually automate additional baggage-handling tasks to maximize efficiency, speed and accuracy — resulting in bags promptly arriving where they belong,” he says.

Delta has not revealed how much it pays for each RFID tags, but has disclosed that it is less than 10 cents per tag. At first sight this might seem inexpensive, but in truth implementing RFID technology requires great investment in infrastructure, which is why this solution has not been widely by other Airlines implemented yet. Delta has invested over $50 Million implementing this system.

And we could see RFID make its way into many areas of life. Ciccone says the tags could replace bar codes at grocery stores. The technology even could provide of list of what’s in your refrigerator to your phone, letting you know, for example, if milk has soured or if you’re low on your favorite beverage.

“RFID tags can also be applied in retail environments to accelerate the checkout process, or provide a ‘touch’ count for a product,” Ciccone says. “For the latter, the retailer can measure how often a customer removes a product from a display, and pair the number of ‘pick-ups’ versus its sales figures to attain a new conversion metric.”

Delta’s track record with luggage is already one of the industry’s best, as just 1 out of 500 bags handled by the airline are lost or delayed. RFID is determined to make that record even better. If it works, other airlines are sure to follow. Ciccone says the technology not only could result in fewer bags getting lost, but also speeding up the bag-sorting process.

However, all is not perfect. Delta is only the first Airline in the US to implement RFID into its baggage tracking system, and while other Airlines are looking into this and other technologies, it is yet to be seen if others will follow. Less than 5% of the Airlines have RFID technology worldwide, which means lost luggage is still a big unsolved issue.

Furthermore, Delta’s new tracking system won’t follow every suitcase. There are limitations, and items like strollers or bags checked at the gate for regional jets, such as those picked up at the arriving gate, won’t be tracked with RFID.

If a Delta passenger connects onto a flight with a Delta partner, the traditional barcode tag takes over for the final leg of the journey. And nothing is preventing the airline from losing your bag if any of these tags get ripped off along the way, including the RFID tags. As SITA Baggage Report of 2016 reveals, 20% of Lost Luggage is caused by tag errors.

All this means that lost luggage will still be an issue for a long while. As Airlines try to find the perfect solution to this issue, travelers need to take matters into their own hands to be able to take control of their luggage. This is where LugLoc comes in.

The innovative LugLoc luggage locator provides travelers with the ability to track their bags, so that if the airline loses them, you know where they are. This will speed up recovery time immensely, and decrease unpleasant surprises. To take advantage of this system, simply purchase the tracking system, which combines GSM and Bluetooth technology, and then track it using its simple app. After downloading the app, a map will appear showing the exact location of your suitcase, regardless of where in the world it is.

Is there anything better than a fancy gadget that can not only provide quick solutions to everyday problems but also reduce human effort and conserve space? Tricky question. If you are a gadget geek and a traveler, take a look at this selection of items that will help you control your life in digital, wireless, and remote ways.

A Wireless Security Camera

The Nest Cam Indoor security camera is designed to help you look after your home and family – even when you’re away. Whether you’re on vacation or eating out for dinner, you can constantly monitor activity inside and outside your home. Some cameras can’t stay on all the time because they rely on batteries, with a Nest Aware subscription, Nest Cam continuously records 24/7 so you never miss a thing.

This beautiful gadget lets you see your home in 1080p HD video and it features night vision and microphone abilities. What’s more, it can send you notifications when there’s suspicious sounds or motions outside your house and it allows you to hear and speak through the device. A great pick for those who seek peace of mind! Price: $199.

We can’t imagine leaving home without our smartphones. As keeping it powered up on long journeys can be an issue, a power bank can be an excellent gadget to have. They come in all shapes, weights and capacities (and some recharge their own battery using solar energy, which could mean you never need to charge your devices using the main power again).

Lepow Moonstone 6000 is a smart & portable battery power compatible with all smartphone and tablets. It has an ergonomic design and it can fit your pocket, backpack, and purse.

Keep in mind that some Airlines, particularly in Asia, prohibit carrying Power Banks during flights. Please keep this in mind if traveling by Flight!

A Personal Cloud Storage

Whether you are on a family vacation and taking millions of pictures, or on a business trip and in need of dozens of documents, having a storage device that gives you access to all of your files and media (music, movies, etcetera) no matter where you are is invaluable.

Lima helps you with that. It works over WiFi, 3G, 4G and even offline (as long as you’ve set it for offline viewing); it helps you save space on your computers and mobile devices while providing instant access to the same drive from all your devices. This gadget is compatible with Windows, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS.

A Bluetooth Speaker

The UE Boom 2 is a compact, durable wireless Bluetooth speaker that you can take everywhere you go. It was designed to get wet, muddy, or covered in snow, and has a strong battery life that can last up to 15 hours. A great gadget for the adveturous travelers.

This amazing speaker comes in six different colors and is fully waterproof. Plus, you can tap the top of the device to pause your music and double-tap to skip a track forward: gesture controls rock!

LugLoc makes your luggage smart: it is a tiny luggage locator that uses GSM and GPRS so you can track your bag at any airport in the world and never miss your personal belongings again. You will be able to keep an eye on your bags in real-time within the LugLoc mobile app with this patented, TSA-approved tracking device.

The first 30-Days of service are on LugLoc and, after that period is over, you will need to acquire one of theService Plans they offer to keep tracking your stuff.

The internet of things is changing the way we travel. Which of these gadgets would you love to try? Please let us know!

A recent report on ABC 7’s Eyewitness News, told the sad story of a World War II veteran who was traveling to a reunion of his fellow platoon but when he arrived at the airport, his luggage—and all his war memorabilia inside—were gone!

Emmett Nolan was on a United Airlines flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Norfolk, Virginia this summer, to reunite with the 101st Airborne Screaming Eagles. He was going to be making a speech and showing off some of his war uniforms, ribbons and medals, but all of that disappeared when his luggage never came off the plane.

Nolan was 18 years old when he enlisted in the U.S. Army back in 1943. He was a paratrooper with the 101st airborne Screaming Eagles. Among the 91-year-old’s irreplaceable possessions were a presidential citation and a lanyard from Holland.

His daughter, Linda Williamson, who was traveling with him on the trip, told the news station that they were told the luggage ended up on another flight—caused by the fact that their original flight was canceled and they missed their connecting flight. The problem was, the airline couldn’t say exactly where.

“It was just awful. I’ve never been treated like that in my entire life,” Williamson said. “I was so frustrated with the whole episode that I filed a complaint with the airlines and I also filed a complaint with the Department of Transportation.”

Nolan went to the reunion and sadly was sans his memories. He had hoped they would show up while he was there, but he and his daughter didn’t hear from the airline the entire weekend.

In fact, even when they returned home to California, the airline was of little help. That’s why they reached out to the ABC News, hoping someone could help.

That was a savvy decision on their part, because a month later, the luggage and all his war memorabilia was found.

“I thought it was gone. I didn’t think we’d recover it. Thought someone had found it, bootlegged it and sold it,” Nolan said. “We got the people, they called in (to ABC7) and really got on the ball and they chased it down and they found it in Newark, New Jersey.”

The Department of Transportation mandates that airlines must compensate passengers for the value of lost or damaged luggage, and its contents, for up to $3,300 for domestic flights. That was little consolation for Nolan, as the sentimental value was irreplaceable.

The innovative LugLoc provides travelers with the ability to track their bags so if the airline loses them, at least you know where they are. To take advantage of this system, simply purchase the tracking system, which combines GSM and Bluetooth technology, and then download a simple app. By tapping the app, a map will appear showing the exact location of your suitcase, regardless of where in the world it is.

When you’re on the go your smartphone becomes your best friend. Why? Because it’s a premium resource that can not only guide you to your hotel, but also help you rent a car for the weekend, buy a cheap plane ticket, play a game while waiting for the bus to arrive, and capture the most amazing pictures of the places you visit.

In a world full of apps, we’ve picked a few we consider are the essential ones, those that every traveler should have on their smartphone. There’s no doubt they will ensure your trip goes smoother and more fun.

Get Organized

Chances are you have heard about, or at least know someone that uses TripCase. It’s one of the most popular travel planning apps that works as a personal assistant by helping you organize your travel plans in a single place. TripCase is an itinerary management app that delivers the right information at the right time. This means that if, for example, your flight is delayed, you will receive a notification on your mobile even before the airline tells you about it. How does this happen? The beautiful app is powered and developed by Sabre, a global technology company that leads the travel industry.

After downloading the app, you will have to complete your profile, add a trip and every item you like (car rental, reservations at restaurants and any other attraction). Plus, you can share your trip with others and, in this way, if you’ve emailed information about an arrival, the updates of that flight will be sent to that person too. It’s available for iOSand Android.

It can happen, you can leave home without a spare pair of socks. Sure, the world will continue to turn and, with a couple of bucks, you will buy new ones elsewhere. But, let’s be honest, to travel well more often than not is to pack light. Instead of going through the mental checklist for each trip, you can create a customized inventory list with Packing Pro.

Think about it, this is a perfect travel companion. The bad news is it’s only available for iPhone and iPad for now. You can auto generate packing lists based on a variety of travel factors such as destination, number of travelers, weather, food, etcetera. What’s more, you can easily create a list with over 100 items in seconds. Of course, you can move these items from one list to another. So, whether you are an awful list-maker, or someone who makes a list out of everything, you will fall in love.

Dishing on Food

Like Tinder but for food, that’s how Foodspottingis often described. There are times when you find yourself saying, “don’t ask me. what do you want to eat?” and that’s where this app earns it’s keep. It’s useful for finding restaurants with dishes that look appetizing, a visual guide to food if you will.

This app uses your location and is perfect for travel because, it allows you to search by restaurant, dish type, user, or location to maximize your ability to make the best local eating decision. It’s available for iOSand Android.

International travelers often have a need help to communicate in the native tongue of the place they’re visiting, and this app is here to save the day. Of the 500 million+ people who use Google Translate, more than 9 in 10 live outside the U.S. This app lets you translate a word into 103 different languages (and you can even chat to anyone in a foreign language). Not so long ago, the idea of a universal language translation device sounded like science fiction, but now this it’s reality and available for iOSand Android.

Which are the apps you usually use when traveling abroad? Please share them with us, we would love to find out!

The British Olympic team did a lot right at this year’s Summer Olympic Games in Rio, taking 67 medals back to England, but when traveling home, they did something that was anything but medal-worthy.

An article in The Washington Post revealed that when the 300-plus athletes and support staff got off their plane, they were greeted not only by a slew of flag-waving, cheering fans, but also a sea of red bags.

You see, someone behind the scenes for the British Olympic team made the decision that all of its athletes should have the same red suitcase to show team unity, but didn’t think far enough ahead to realize what would happen when 900-plus identical bags would roll out on the luggage carousel together.

Olympian Rick Dempsey, who took home a silver medal in Men’s windsurfing, was a bit flabbergasted when he went to pick up his bags at the airport and realized that it wasn’t going to be easy.

However, fellow Olympic sailor, Sophie Ainsworth, didn’t mind the problem, tweeting out, “Honored to be a part of the Olympics” and “This is a fantastic problem to have.”

Brian Parrish, a spokesperson for Southwest Airlines, has seen situations like this before and notes that Southwest customer service agents pay strict attention to ensure all bags are properly tagged with the owner’s name and contact information.

“We place an intense focus on making certain that we properly tag each piece of checked baggage with the correct final destination upon customer check in,” he says. “Our Ground Operations Team manually reads each tag on checked baggage to ensure items are properly loaded so that we deliver our customers’ checked items as promised.”

Unless the travelers themselves do something to distinguish the bags, those at the check-in desks can’t really do anything except ensure that they have the proper ID tags on the luggage.

Peter Greenberg, who runs a travel blog, notes there are several ways that people could distinguish their luggage, and any of these tips could have helped the Olympic athletes solve their “red” dilemma.

His tips include using a unique luggage tag, featuring an animal or a fluorescent color; add colorful duct tape to the bag; attach a colorful or unusual luggage belt, and adding travel stickers.

Travel host Channon Dade has traveled the world during her 17 years working in the travel industry, including landing on five continents and 35 different countries.

“I have an emblem of my alma mater, Stanford University, attached to my bag to help it standout.” she says. “Even if there was another bag that looked like mine, I would know the difference.”

Now, a simple fix for the British team could have been just writing the athlete’s name on the bag somewhere, but even with the problems it caused, the Brits all seemed to have a good laugh about it. Besides, with the number of medals it returned to its country with, they were just excited about the whole experience.

Anyone who travels often has likely had an experience where a bag gets lost or damaged. It isn’t funny at the moment, and some experiences are harder to get over than others, but after enough time goes by, sometimes we can look back and have fun with the bad memory.

That’s why we asked brave travelers to dig into their past and share stories with us that they’d likely prefer to forget.

Not the Car Seat!

Jeff Neal, founder of Jason Coupon Kingremembers a time when he, his wife and their two daughters traveled from Pennsylvania to Florida. They lost something that stopped them in their tracks.

“You can take baby car seats onto the flight for free, but once we landed, one of our car seats was missing,” Neal says. “We were stressing out because you can’t just have a kid bouncing around in a car without a car seat. And they’re expensive.”

They went to the help desk and after two hours of waiting (and two kids getting increasingly grumpy), they were told the car seat was lost.

“The vacation was off to a terrible start, but this story has a happy ending,” Neal says. “After letting us know it was lost, they had a loaner car seat (which luckily fit our daughter), and they said we could borrow it until they found ours. If they didn’t find our car seat, they would have let us keep it. But two days later, we get a call from the airport, letting us know that they found the car seat.

“If you have kids, then you know that traveling with them is a nightmare because you need to pack strollers and car seats in addition to the luggage, which only adds to the stress and anxiety.”

A Ruined Suitcase

Catherine Shovlin, U.K. director for the firm Synthetron, once flew from London to San Francisco with a tight transfer in Philadelphia. Her nightmare began when her luggage showed up on the carousel in Philly.

“My 9-year-old daughter’s small hard shell case was practically destroyed,” Shovlin says. “The lid was broken, the zip had ripped open and there were two dirty great tire tracks across the top of it. Distraught we gathered up the items scattered across the carousel and headed to the customer service counter with the sorry apology for a suitcase.”

They didn’t get much help in Philly, the airline representative directed them to a table with tape and bubble wrap to fix it.

“We were flabbergasted,” Shovlin says. “Not only no apology but no surprise either. Is this such a regular occurrence that they have a table especially for it? I tried to reassure my daughter but she was pretty upset.”

Everything worked out OK, though. She found a more helpful crew in San Francisco, and the airline gave her a new, better, suitcase and a toiletries pack.

“My daughter got a new holiday wardrobe,” Shovlin says. “We completed the paperwork and within a few weeks they had refunded the cost of everything we had bought, including replacing my laptop, which I had stupidly put in her case thinking the hard shell would protect it.”

They Found the Bag, But…

Not all stories have a happy ending, though. Four years ago, Julie Bonette, of Laura Bishop Communications, spent five weeks in Greece, and had an experience that was, let’s say, colorful.

“On my way home, Al Italia lost my bag,” Bonette says. “They kept telling me they would send it to me in the mail and I’d see it ‘tomorrow’ but I didn’t get it until eight days later. When I opened up my bag, an expensive liquor I had purchased, that was a specialty to one of the islands in Greece I had visited, had shattered and turned all of my clothes orange.”

The LugLoc luggage locator can help keep your dream vacation from turning to a nightmare. For more information, go to LugLoc.com.

An avalanche of wearable products is coming our way and you should enjoy the new releases. Thanks to the advent of f technology, wearable products are becoming easier to own than ever before.. Not only are these tech accessories fashionable, but also functional. One can monitor sleep, track fitness, count calories, and even feel a buzz you if you need to move more.

They say that smart clothes are the future of wearables. Overall, fitness tracking bands and smartwatches are by far the most popular type of wearable technology at the moment. They can tell us everything about accurate fitness metrics and detailed analysis of workouts in a few minutes. Thankfully, many companies are beginning to think beyond gym rats. Take a look at these five must-have when traveling:

24/7 Charger Jeans

Charging your phone from the wall sounds old-school nowadays. Joes Jeanscreated #Hello, a luxury and skinny jean designed to carry your phone and keep you charged at all times. You just place your iPhone in the secret side pocket, connect it to the power cord and then press the power button on the battery pack to charge. This doesn’t come cheap. Jeans: $189. Battery pack: $49.

How about this for amazing – Lechal. Imagine if your shoes told you which way to go without you ever having to take your eyes off the road or sidewalk. “Slip into your smart footwear, set your destination in your app, and let Lechal show you the way through gentle vibrations”. The shoes sync over Bluetooth to an app that pulls your path from Google Maps. Plus, it counts steps, calories and measures the distance travelled. It logs your activity, so that you can keep track of your fitness.

Touch-sensitive clothing

Google And Levi’s designeda piece of clothing different from others. It appears to be as normal as any denim but it’s not: it has a conductive yarn that enables touch interactivity. Users can tap, swipe or hold on the left cuff of the sleeve to fulfill simple tasks like changing music tracks, blocking or answering calls or accessing navigation information (delivered by voice). All functions that can be sustained while riding in place of having to pull a phone out to do them.

A Smart Sock For The Little Ones

The Owlet Baby Monitor is a world-changing “smart sock” that measures a baby’s heart rate and breathing. It uses the same pulse oximetry technology used in hospitals and can monitor heart rate to make sure the little one’s breathing and sleep has been uninterrupted. This tiny beauty comes in three different sizes to ensure a snug fit and charges up via a small base station.

A simpler way to pay. If wearing something around your wrist is not really your style, take a look at this. Barclaycard and Lyle & Scott have teamed up to launch a contactless payment jacket powered by bPay: the Contactless Jacket. The payment bit is hidden in the cuff of your sleeve, and it has bPay inside you can use your credit or debit card (from Barclays or any other bank) to complete transactions in hundreds of thousands of places in the UK.

We’re ready to embrace new wearables in our lives. They are fun and really helpful. Which wearables will you take with you when traveling?

A business trip or a family holiday are all too often the perfect situations to slack on workouts and take a vacation from fitness. Fortunately those excuses don’t make any sense nowadays, as you simply need a device to continue moving your bones with your everyday routine. Sure, if you think that Pokémon Go counts as exercise and helps you burn off calories, then that counts as well. Otherwise, check out these three apps for working out when traveling.

Map My Run

Going for a run is easy when traveling. You just need to have packed a pair of sneakers and workout clothes, and then you are ready to jog anywhere. However, not knowing the details of your vacation local, where to go and how to come back to the hotel, is sometimes the perfect excuse for not exercising. MapMyRun is a must-have app that helps you plan a workout totally based on the best things to see in the city and allows you to check out local tourists attractions. It’s all about tracking your route, plus calories burned, elevation and your nutrition for the day.

With this app, you can instantaneously get your running maps and view them in Google or Google Earth. Then, you can post them to your social media accounts, blog or website, email them to friends or print them out. Routes can be saved automatically, and the app will keep track of past stats and compare it with future workouts on the same route. Download this app for iPhone or Android.

Pact

If you need a little extra incentive to stick to your workout routine, you can find the perfect one with Pact. This smartphone app pays you to exercise and eat right. Yes, we’re talking about having a more healthy life and earning money to do it. It offers three different kinds of pacts – food, veggie and gym.

The food pact requires you to log your daily intake using MyFitnessPal and it syncs directly with Pact while the veggie pact makes you set a goal to eat a certain amount of fruits and vegetables per week and, to verify that, you need to snap a photo with your phone before eating. For the gym pact you are given credit for trips to the gym, bike rides of at least 30 minutes, a daily step count of at least 10.000, and so on. So you know, you don’t pay anything up front. When you sign up for a pact, you select a certain amount that is deducted from your credit card or PayPal account for each day you miss. If you hit your goal, then you get paid a reward ranging from 30 cents to $5 per week and the reward money comes from people who fail to honor their pacts. Download this app for iPhone and Android.

Maybe you’re one of those people who doesn’t like training the same way each day. Sworkit is a randomized circuit-training app that allows people to choose what muscle they want to work out, and for how long. Each individual exercise lasts for 30 seconds and is accompanied by an in-app illustration in case the move is not familiar (includes high quality video content with audio guidance recorded in 13 different languages). You can take your exercise routines anywhere and anytime and they can go from 5 minutes to one hour. Just touch the screen to start up a circuit (there’s also a yoga/stretching option) and you’re ready to go. You can choose between full body, upper body, lower body, core strength, lower body and more. Select the time, press “start” and your workout begins. Download for iPhone and Android.

In a 2.0 world full of hundreds of fitness apps, you now have three more to try when traveling to get in shape in no time. Too busy to workout? Too tired to get out and move? Think again. These apps will get you going in just a few minutes a day.